UN climate negotiations were a major bummer

Maybe it was the host of the UN climate summit in Azerbaijan this month calling oil and gas a “gift of God.” Or the US, the world’s biggest oil and gas producer, reelecting a president who says “we don’t have a global warming problem” just before the conference. Then again, the biggest outcome — or disappointment, depending on how you look at it — was an incremental increase in the amount of climate aid wealthier nations committed to less affluent countries dealing with the consequences of other people’s pollution.

Any way you look at it, the summit (called the Conference of the Parties, or COP) that fizzed out over the weekend was exasperating, particularly for delegates from parts...

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